Cleave
A Makari meditation on how a grammar concept opened into a lesson on devotion, division, and the tenderness of language.
To cleave is to break,
and to bind.
To tear the veil,
and find a face still waiting behind it.
It opens once,
then again,
and again—
each split revealing another center,
each center holding a softer edge.
The word itself holds its halves
like lungs
—
each pulling apart to breathe,
each drawing the other back in.
Every promise is
a cleft sentence—
Every vow
says:
It is you
whom I release
by holding.
It is I
who remain
by leaving.
→ A reflection on how language holds and divides.
Read: Cleave: On the Art of Holding and Dividing →
→ For those curious about where this began—how the word cleave became a poem, then a lesson.
Read: How “Cleave” Unfolded →
→ Read all Three →
Check out Syntax of the Self: Part 1 → Part 2 → Part 3 → Author’s Note → Navigation Guide — then continue with The Sentence That Lets Us Belong.
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